


What Is Best In Life

by Villainyandgoodcheekbones



Series: The Hell-Raising Chronicles of the Trenchcoat Brigade [2]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-12
Updated: 2013-03-12
Packaged: 2017-12-05 03:31:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Villainyandgoodcheekbones/pseuds/Villainyandgoodcheekbones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bahorel, Feuilly, and Valentine's day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Is Best In Life

Feuilly doesn’t hate Valentine’s  Day.

It’s just exhausting.

It’s exhausting spending the whole day running from Courfeyrac and Jehan, literally sprinting in the other direction because it’s Valentine’s Day, which means they’ll be quoting Keats and Neruda (Jehan) and “Titanic” (Courfeyrac) at each other, and being so absurdly sweet and happy that to be within fifteen feet of them constitutes a quantifiable medical risk of inducing a diabetic coma. And God knows he can’t pay for health care, so he runs.

It’s equally exhausting dodging Marius and Cosette, and even worse staring at cryptic texts from Grantaire, trying to figure out what the _hell_ he means by “they have marshmallow vodka and stopwatches. I’m winning”

It’s exhausting trying to slog through the mindless drudgery dumped on him because his professors are bitter and old and alone and taking it out on their hapless, sleep-starved students, and his manager actually requires the suffering of others to sustain his unholy existence. By the time he drags himself home, he’s utterly drained. He slumps over the kitchen table, and all he wants to do is sleep, but there is so much _shit_ still to get done.

But he could bear even this if weren’t Valentine’s Day, because Bahorel has a tradition on Valentine’s Day and it’s not _fair_. The thing about Bahorel is that Bahorel is actually simultaneously the kind of person who reads Fritz Leiber and gets the shit routinely kicked of him in teen movies from the 80’s, and the leather-clad punk in Doc Martins doing the kicking. Bahorel gives every indication of living his life by the Tao of Tyler Durden, and has also, completely un-ironically, declared Feuilly and Grantaire his blood-riders in the event he ever has to start his own _khalasar_.

Bahorel’s Valentine’s Day tradition is this:

He steals paint from Feuilly’s side of the apartment (any color works, although he favors cobalt and a bloody purple-red which goes by the inexplicable name of “Psyche’s Revenge”).  He draws jagged lines across his chest and shoulders, and spends the rest of the day aggressively shirtless, marathon-ing legitimately fucking _terrible_ fantasy-action movies, because “Valentine’s Day is about celebrating what you love.  To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women, that’s what’s best in life, Feuilly.”  Crushing enemies, apparently, must be done bare-chested for the fullest experience.

And Feuilly could bear that too, he could even get past how unfair it is that he has to sit in the same room as his painted, shirtless roommate (and it is _really fucking distracting_ ; he deserves a medal for his self-control) and try to work, if weren’t for The Jeans.

The Jeans appear like a holy sign at random intervals, but are always worn on February 14th. They have earned their capitalization ten times over. The Jeans used to be blue until a combination of time and being Bousset’s partner in a Gen Ed. Chem lab bleached them paper-white. Then they turned a dusty rose after the Red-Coat Heist of 2010 (which was Courfeyrac’s fault; Enjolras nearly ate him alive). The Jeans have been worn tissue thin, and clearly love Bahorel more than anything else could ever hope to. The Jeans are in fact terrifyingly co-dependent; they ride loose and low on his hips but _cling_ everywhere else in ways which are obscene and that he’s fairly sure should not actually be _possible_.

It’s not _fair._

Feuilly groans around his cigarette and buries his face in his arms. Onscreen, Arnold Schwarzenegger has just finished correcting some poor, mistaken soul who actually believes that life is all about the open steppe, a fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair. Idiot. Bahorel applauds and Feuilly gives up on any hope of getting work done, dropping down next to Bahorel on the couch.

“Shirt off.”

Feuilly is not as tall as Bahorel, and noticeably narrower. As such, he can’t pack as _much_ withering disdain into the tilt of his shoulders, but it’s more concentrated.

“ _Really_?”

Bahorel gazes at him with absolute seriousness. “You are wearing a sweater.” he says. “The first rule of Fight Club is that you do not talk about Fight Club, and the second rule of Fight Club is _that you do not talk about Fight Club_ and every other fucking rule of Fight Club is that you do not wear a fucking sweater to Fight Club.”

“That’s not even what we’re watching.” Bahorel dismisses this with a sweeping wave of his hand.

“Irrelevant. Strip or Leave.” Feuilly wishes it to go on record that he is only complying under extreme protest. Really. In addition to shirts, cigarettes are apparently banned as well, on the grounds that some people don’t want “your fucking burning ash” dropped on their bare skin. Feuilly is an addict and artist, with no ability keep his hands still. He ends up tucked against Bahorel’s side, tracing the tattoos climbing up his hip and ribs with nicotine-stained fingers. Bahorel is actually a giant cat, so he allows it, and everything is fine until Feuilly’s hand dips under the waistband of The Jeans, and without even really meaning to, he skims his fingertips along the crease where hip turns into leg.

Bahorel grabs his wrist in an iron grip and pins it to the couch, without looking away from the TV even once. And Feuilly dies a little inside, but okay, fine, he can see why that might have been out of line, so he swallows the lump in his throat, and waits for Bahorel to let go of his hand.

Bahorel doesn’t let go.

Feuilly tugs and Bahorel _still_ doesn’t let go, so Feuilly grabs a fistful of his hair and yanks _hard_ in retaliation. Then Bahorel does something with his legs that rolls them both off the couch onto the floor and Feuilly’s head hits the coffee table on the way down, turning everything momentarily white and shapeless and he yelps. When he can see again, Bahorel is on top of him, knees bracketing his hips, pinning Feuilly’s wrists above his head and grinning his fight grin, the tiger-ish one that shows _way_ too many fucking teeth. Feuilly bucks and thrashes for about half a minute, trying break loose, before it occurs to him that he’s half-naked, writhing on the floor underneath another half-naked (unfairly attractive) man.

Okay.

He can play that game.

Feuilly closes his eyes and grinds upwards with a torturous slow-ness, rolling his hips. He makes it through about half a minute of that before he remembers that this is _Bahorel_ , who he _lives_ with, and starts to panic. Feuilly freezes, slitting open one eye, then the other and braces himself for the incoming fist. When it doesn’t come, he opens his eyes all the way, and _Oh._

_Oh._

Bahorel has his head thrown back, eyes closed. There’s purple smeared down the line of his throat, collecting in the hollow of his collarbone, and Feuilly thinks that if he could paint that line, exactly as it looks right now, he could put down the brush for the rest of his life and be happy. He also thinks that he would really like to trace it with his tongue. Bahorel looks down at him through his eyelashes. “If you stop now, I swear I will break every bone in your hand” he growls, voice rough.  His grip tightens on Feuilly’s wrists, as if in demonstration. Feuilly thinks to himself that he probably shouldn’t find that romantic.

Then again, fuck “should”.

“You wouldn’t dare. They’d kill you” and it comes out only slightly breathless.

“Throw away every single one of your–” Bahorel inhales sharply as Feuilly twists under him again “your cigarettes, I know where you keep them–” Behind them, Schwarzenegger is charging down a hilltop at the head of what can only be described as a mighty horde, and the music swells triumphantly and it’s such _ridiculous_ fucking timing Feuilly can’t help it, and he starts to laugh. Then Bahorel’s laughing too, collapsing sideways onto the ground (completely failing to hit the coffee table, because life right now is awesome, but still not fair and Bahorel is more coordinated than he has any right to be). He drapes himself all along Feuilly’s back and hooks his chin over Feuilly’s freckled shoulder.

His beard and his breath tickle as he murmurs “Happy Valentine’s Day” into Feuilly’s neck, and he can feel teeth, because this is _Bahorel_ , and it’s probably going to leave a mark, but Feuilly doesn’t care. Their hands lace together.

“Thought you were going to hide my cigarettes and break my hands if I stopped.” Feuilly drawls.

“Mm. But you’re a better person than me. You have a work ethic.” This close, he can feel the rumble in Bahorel’s chest as his voice drops. “You never leave things half-finished.”

Eventually, the credits roll, but nobody’s watching.


End file.
